


St. George and the Stephanie

by randomlyimagine



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abuse, Dragon!Stephanie Brown, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Magical Inheritance, Multi, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl, Stephanie Brown is Spoiler, Stephanie Brown-centric, They're still superheroes though, i'm making it better by making her a dragon, once we get out of her backstory anyway, steph's life is hard yall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomlyimagine/pseuds/randomlyimagine
Summary: For years, every time he got just drunk enough, Arthur Brown would start yelling about how he used to be a dragon, before he'd been sealed. About how his daughter didn't deserve to be one too.Steph knew full well her dad was full of shit. So she'd never actuallybelievedhim.Well. Almost never.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake
Comments: 24
Kudos: 59





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen dragon!AUs for all the Batboys, but not the Batgirls??? So I decided to fill that niche.
> 
> Warning for discussion of Steph's canon backstory, which involves her father abusing her and trying to kill her, but nothing graphic. Also discusses Steph's mom's canonical drug addiction and the resulting child neglect.
> 
> Updates will happen *makes vague hand-wavey motions.* You'd think I'd be better at using all this sudden quarantine-induced free time to write, tbh. I have the next two chapters written, though, and will post them in the next few days. Also, this is gonna be on the shorter end unless I jinx it, maybe 8-10k, so it hopefully won't take too long. And of course, comments will help that happen faster ;)

Stephanie Brown hadn’t _known_ for a long time. Oh, sure, her dad had always said that he was a dragon— _had been_ a dragon, before those _insert-lots-of-curse-words-here_ s had bound him into mortal form. But she hadn’t really _believed_ him, because Stephanie Brown had not had to get on in her years before figuring out that Arthur Brown was full of fucking shit.

Her mom told her he wasn't, when she was twelve. Her dad was in jail again, and that made it safe to say what she’d been thinking for years: “Of course he’s not a dragon, he’s just a _liar_.”

Steph’s mom tensed up, first in a reflexive horror because that was not the kind of thing you said around Arthur Brown. But then she stayed tense, scooting her chair a couple inches toward the sofa where Steph was sitting and saying, “Honey...”

“What?” Steph asked, the picture of petulance. “Like I’m wrong.”

Her mom’s face creased. (That was one of her mom’s good days. Those were rare, when Steph was twelve.) “Honey, no. Your father isn’t lying.”

“But he can’t be a dragon! That’s not how _anything_ works, that’s not how the _laws of physics_ work!”

“Multiple aliens helped clean up after that hurricane last week.”

“What,” Steph sneered, “so now Dad is an _alien_ dragon?”

Her mom sighed. Explosively. (Metaphorically explosively—a clarification that would later in Steph’s life become essential.) “He wasn’t bound—well. It wasn’t until after I married him. I saw what he used to look like.”

Steph was scowling, because she loved her mom desperately, but her mom wasn’t the most reliable source in the world, either. But her mom didn’t notice, because case in point, she was somewhere _else_.

“He was so large. A wingspan like nothing you thought could be real.” Steph really didn’t think any dragon wingspan could be real. “His scales were orange, like the brightest burning flame. His claws were the size of my head, each one, but he was so gentle...”

Which was the sort of thing that made Steph's mom sound _super_ credible. Her dad. Gentle. No.

But Steph's mom _wasn't_ her dad, didn't (intentionally, usually) lie to her. So in that moment Steph didn’t know whether she actually believed the insane shit her parents had been telling her for years. But she did know that, on the world’s tiniest off-chance it was true, she was _so glad_ her dad was “bound.”

–

Of course, Steph’s dad was an unbelievable asshole who didn’t need to be a dragon in order to kill people.

But in the ridiculous, insane thought experiment where he was right, and he’d been a dragon and Steph was one too...well, he still wasn’t right, because Steph probably would have noticed if she’d sprouted wings.

So she made herself another way to fly.

Well. Scale buildings, anyway.

–

(If, even years down the line, Step always felt like she had something more to prove, because of that bullshit? If, even knowing it _was_ bullshit, she couldn’t quite stop herself from doing things she really, really shouldn't? If it pushed her too far, set a fire burning in her chest? Well. That was for Steph to know and handle privately, where no one else would ever find out.)


	2. Chapter 1

Even by the time Steph was eight years old, she was super thoroughly sick of her dad yammering on about being a giant fire-breathing lizard. After all, she’d never been stupid enough to _believe_ him.

Well, maybe at five, young and naive and still capable of believing in her father and also the Tooth Fairy. But he’d gotten arrested not long after that, spent more time in jail than than out of it over the next decade, and anyway, it hadn’t taken Steph long past age five to figure out that her dad was full of shit.

There were only so many ways to react, really, when your dad said you deserved to be locked in a closet for eight hours because you still had your wings.

Stephanie Brown was eight years old the first time that happened, but it was far from the last. Especially when her dad came back drunk enough to start yelling about the “motherfucking dragon council” that’d sealed his “inner dragon” away.

And she knew it wasn’t true, really, she did, but she was angry and reckless and needed to get somewhere open with no walls and no doors and no locks at all.

Besides, Steph figured that if she had to put up with her dad stealing stuff and locking her in closets, the world _owed_ her some dragon wings.

So as soon as her dad was out and her mom was too high to pay attention, Steph headed for the roof of their shitty apartment building. The lock had been broken since before she could remember, and even if the landlord had cared to get it fixed, one of the smokers would’ve rebroken it immediately. But everyone knew better than to tell the landlord about it, anyway, so Steph and the handful of other kids in the building got to take advantage.

Asphalt pebbles jumped as she landed again, again. As she threw herself upward and tried to think flying thoughts.

 _Clouds_. No. _Birds_. No. _Butterflies_. Nope. _Dragonflies_. Nada. _Balloons_. Nothing.

It was getting late. Her dad was crazy. Her dad had sounded so _sure_.

The sun had been close to setting when she’d snuck out, and at an hour later, it was pretty much full dark. But it was okay—her dad was going out with his bad guy friends, so he wouldn’t be home until after midnight. And Steph’s mom wouldn’t check back in for hours.

Gotham almost looked pretty from seven stories up. With the sunset behind the buildings, you couldn’t tell how dirty it was.

On TV, the hero never learned to fly until their mentor pushed them off of something.

Steph wasn’t feeling _that_ reckless, though. And anyway, she didn’t have a mentor.

But maybe if she stood on the ledge and looked down, the thought of falling would be enough.

It probably wouldn’t work, because her dad was a mean old liar. And a stupidface.

But—

The ledge wasn’t _that_ high. Steph had been vaulting up on the counter to get food for years, and the ledge was barely taller!

Standing up on it, though…

Vertigo rushed in. Seven floors was a _long_ way, which kinda the point, but yikes.

No, she’d crouch at the edge of the roof. Like a gargoyle. A lot of _them_ had wings.

Maybe she’d been doing it wrong. Maybe she didn’t need to picture wings, maybe she should imagine already _having_ them.

If she could grow wings, they’d come out the back of her shoulders, like an angel. But she wasn’t an angel, of course, she was—hopefully—a dragon, which was way cooler, and also meant that the wings wouldn’t be all feathery and white. No, they’d be like bat wings. Or pterodactyl wings. _Yeah._ She wanted pterodactyl wings. And they’d feel like leather, and have long lines down them, and turn into scales right where they met her back. And they’d be purple! And they’d be heavy, she’d have to lean back—or forward? Forward. To keep her balance. She’d move them with the muscles in her back, to bring them up and—

“Kid!” There were arms around her and that meant a person, and when had she closed her eyes?

Steph forced them open as the person lowered her down and her feet kicked up more little rocks on the roof as she tried to stand up and get _away_.

But then she looked up, and the person holding her was Robin.

“It’s okay, kid,” he was saying as Steph fought between tension and awe. “Everything’s okay, but you know, you really can’t be playing on the roof like this, it’s dangerous.”

_Robin!_

“You could’ve fallen, kid, and then where would we be, huh? No playing on roofs, okay? Especially near the edges.”

“You’re on the roof,” Steph said, tone as dubious as she could muster—which was very _—_ and she then wanted to slap a hand over her mouth because _she’d just insulted Robin_.

“Yeah,” Robin said smiling, “but I’m a professional.”

“A professional what?” She was pretty sure being a vigilante wasn’t an actual job.

“A professional Robin!” Robin’s smile widened, but Steph’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t a baby—she knew when she was being patronized. “And you’re definitely not a professional Robin, because I’m the only one. So why don’t you tell me what you’re doing on this roof?”

It didn’t matter how much Steph loved Robin. Even at age eight, she’d always hated being told what to do.

“What if I _want_ to be a professional Robin?”

Robin chuckled. “You’re still a bit of a squirt for that,” he said, ruffling her hair. “Maybe check back in a few years.” Which was _so_ unfair, everyone knew Robin had started when _he_ was really small.

“But until then, kid, where’s you’re parents?”

And with that, the bubbling of happy-annoyed-glee in Steph’s fingers and toes and stomach was gone.

Lying to Robin. Okay. She could do that.

–

She’d lied to Robin successfully, somehow, which, _what_? Because yeah, lying about her parents was stupidly easy, but Robin wasn’t a teacher or her principal or a police officer, he was _Robin_.

But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he hadn’t found out about her parents, and he wasn’t gonna try to take her away from her mom.

...He could go ahead and arrest her dad, though. That would be awesome.

But she’d spent _over an hour_ off the roof trying to sprout wings. That was practically forever! And yeah, being a dragon would have also been awesome, but Steph wasn’t dumb—and her dad was. Except on purpose and really mean about it.

It was just one more thing he was lying about. It was fine. Steph was fine.

–

If Steph took ten minutes in front of the mirror once or twice a year, scouring her skin for any sign of scales, she would never, ever admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, timelines dictate that was Dick. Hopefully Steph managing to lie to him wasn't too unbelievable--he's still pretty young here (like 15? comic ages, man), and Steph, like many abused kids, has a lot of practice lying about what exactly the situation is with her parents. I genuinely think she could've pulled it off in certain circumstances.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I upped the chapter count, because this is getting longer than I thought, because of course it is. I'm incapable of being concise.
> 
> The Brown's residential history comes in large part from Hinn_Raven's fic(s?). I will also be messing with the timeline of how often Arthur Brown stayed with Stephanie and her mom when he was out of jail. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Howard are completely my own invention, named after my own great aunt and uncle, in honor of my uncle, whom I didn't know well, but who passed away a few days after I started writing this fic.
> 
> Also heads up that I changed the color of Arthur Brown's dragon form to orange (matching his traditional costume, aka Bright orange) where it was mentioned in chapter 1.

When Steph was thirteen, her dad was in jail again, and she started checking out a lot of psychology books from the library. A couple books about addiction—carefully hidden where her mom wouldn’t see them and make it A Thing—but mostly books about things like narcissism and hallucinations and delusions of grandeur and breaks from reality.

After all, if someone in the world was gonna get to be a dragon—and with the roster of the Justice League, it wasn’t _that_ insane—it sure-as-shit wasn’t gonna be some failed, two-bit crook from Gotham. Or his daughter.

–

Anyway, no one on the Justice League roster was a dragon. Not that Steph had checked, or anything. Because dragons _didn’t exist_.

–

Steph was fourteen and from the Narrows. Sure, her parents had moved to a shitty suburb of Gotham, not as poor as the inner city but still super far from rich, and her father refused to let them move even when he got arrested again and they couldn’t pay the mortgage, which only his name was on. But she got picked on for being from the Narrows at her crappy suburban middle school, so it at least half-counted.

Her dad was in jail, her mom was on drugs, and her hometown was blowing it out of the park for number of supervillains per capita. The odds were already stacked against her.

So when her mom made Steph com along to visit her dad in jail, and all her dad did was talk about dragons, Steph spent the whole time rolling her eyes. (Internally.) She wouldn’t fall prey to her dad’s bullshit fantasies.

Stephanie Brown had too much shit to do.

–

When Steph was fifteen, her dad got out of jail again. He swore he was better—“a changed man, kid”—and that he was gonna step up, stay on the straight and narrow, be the man and dad and husband he was supposed to be.

Steph wasn’t stupid enough to _ask_ whether that meant he was done locking her in closets.

But for a while, it even looked like he might have actually not been lying.

But then he had been. Of course. And then a lot of things had happened after Steph had found that out, starting with Spoiler.

But when Steph was fifteen, just two months before she’d found out her dad was lying, before she’d sewn her own mask and cape and set out to stop him, Steph found out that dragons were real.

It was during her dad’s initial burst of altruism and quasi-parenting. They were in the middle of a real sit-down dinner, everyone sober and accounted for, when her dad out of nowhere put his utensils down with a clatter and said, “You know what? You should go visit your Aunt Dorothy.”

“Huh?” Steph asked intelligently.

“My baby sister,” her dad said, gaze weirdly intent. “You know, your Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Howard.” Steph had, in fact, seen the Christmas cards, but not much else.

“It’d be good for you,” her dad continued. “Get to know your heritage. What it means, in this family.”

“Don’t they live in, like, Maine?”

“Yep. ‘Bout two hours out of Ann Arbor.”

It was November. Suffice to say, Steph did not love the idea.

“Oh,” she asked anyway, “like we would all go up for Christmas or something? That would be fun.” And at least the snow would feel festive as her buttcheeks froze together.

But her dad’s face darkened. Not a lot—but Steph was well-attuned to that sort of thing.

“No,” her dad said, mouth tight and hand edging toward his knife. “No, I think this would be a solo trip. Just you and my baby sis.”

With absolutely no warning, her dad chuckled. All the tension drained out of his frame. “No, your mom and I’ll hold down the fort here, I think.”

“You have three weeks off for Christmas this year, don’t you?” her mom asked. “Or for nondenominational winter holidays, and all. That’s plenty of time.”

Her dad scoffed, presumably at the “nondenominational winter holidays” bit and how it recognized that other people existed.

“Yeah, plenty of time. But no, Stephanie, that’s perfect. You’ll go see your Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Howard for New Years. You’ll love it, it’ll be great. Great for you.”

If his smile looked forced at the end, Steph sure wasn’t saying anything.

–

“Holy fucking shit!” Steph shouted. “You’re a fucking dragon!”

A deep bass rumbled through her. It would take her about sixteen heart attacks before she could immediately recognize it as a laugh, and not totally freak out.

“I thought your dad said he told you,” Uncle Howard said from the porch, still human. Or still _looking_ human. Steph squinted.

“I mean, yeah...” It didn’t feel like there was a tactful way to say _but I thought he was fucking insane_ to a dragon the size of a barn.

 _Literally_ the size of a barn—there was one about a hundred yards back. Maybe just for comparison.

Her dad had always said his sister lived in a tiny little hamlet. He hadn’t mentioned that it was an _actual_ (small) farm. Or that as soon as Aunt Dorothy got out of the car, she would balloon up into a _fucking dragon_.

Her aunt was giant and horned and absolutely covered in scales of a dark, burnt orange. She definitely looked like she should be eating sheep instead of raising them.

“I suppose he couldn’t have shown you, anyway,” Aunt Dorothy said, her voice about twenty octaves lower than it had been in the car. “Well, anyway. Yer a dragon, Stephanie.”

Steph blinked.

Then she sputtered.

“Was—was that a _Harry Potter reference_?”

“It’s apropos, isn’t it?” Uncle Howard shrugged, with his beat-up flannel and close-shaved beard, the picture of folksy charm.

The part of Steph’s mind that had blue-screen out of the proceedings finally booted back up again, to make her grin incredulous and so wide it hurt. “Oh yeah. You _definitely_ win for favorite aunt.”

Not that Steph had any other aunts. But going by Aunt Dorothy’s terrifying laughter, it seemed to be the thought that counted.

–

Good news: Steph would totally be able to turn into a dragon.

Bad news: Not until she turned eighteen. Because _magic_.

And _no_ , she was not _sulking_ , Aunt Dorothy. That would be ridiculous.

It was only _turning into a literal freaking dragon_.

No biggie.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep changing the summary on this because I haven't been happy with it. I think this version will be the last one, though.
> 
> Enter Spoiler.

Before she left her Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Howard’s, Steph had made absolutely, _completely_ sure that her father was never going to get to be a dragon again.

“No,” her aunt said. Her mouth was tight but her eyes downcast and distant. “He won’t.”

“The Dragon Council made sure of that,” Uncle Howard said, leaning back in a big plaid armchair, because apparently her relatives couldn’t be more of a rustic cliché. Even though they were both _dragons_ , they shouldn’t be allowed to be cliché unless towers and princesses were involved. “Locked his other form up tight, and for good.”

“Mind, he probably deserved it, after...” Aunt Dorothy started.

Steph let the silence go on for ten seconds, which she thought was really quite patient of her. Her whole life, her dad had never said one word about _why_ he was sealed, and if Steph’s mom knew, she wasn’t saying.

Not that Steph would have believed her mom two weeks ago, but still.

“After…?”

Aunt Dorothy shot her a Look. “After he turned into a dragon in the middle of stealing something or other, right in front of the cops.”

“These days, people are too credulous,” Uncle Howard added. “Can’t count on them to dismiss tales of dragons as crazytalk anymore. Fucking Justice League. Makes us too plausible.”

Since that was literally one of the ticks in Baby Steph’s column of Maybe Dad Isn’t Lying, Steph couldn’t exactly argue.

“Plus all those video cameras they just put everywhere,” Uncle Howard groused. “And radar! Fucking satellite and radar, makes it too damn hard to fly anywhere.”

“I can see how that would be a problem,” Steph said, trying to sound sage. And internally noting down: _Be careful about flying. Video cameras and radar._

Because one day—one day soon, just three more years, she could convince herself that wasn’t that long—she’d be able to _fly_.

–

A few weeks later, she snuck into her dad’s “study,” which she was never allowed in, even when he was in prison. Just to check.

The desk was covered in blueprints. For the Castleland Mall. Also, there were guns.

Well. It wasn’t like she’d actually believed her dad.

He was a bastard, and it was a small miracle he hadn’t hit her or her mom yet since getting out of prison. He needed to get arrested again, ASAP.

And Steph would _love_ to help him out with that.

She bought a metric ton of water soluble paint, and she made herself a costume.

Cluemaster wanted to make a comeback? She’d bring the goddamn clues.

–

_And to the Spoiler goes the victory._

Even if Robin had ripped her mask off and Batman had told her dad who she was. The jerks.

Her dad had also threatened to pour acid on her face, but that was pretty on-brand for him, so, y'know. Whatever. Her dad got arrested, anyway, she’d helped _get_ him arrested, and that was all that mattered.

–

Okay, so maybe Robin _wasn’t_ a jerk.

Or at least he was a cute (from what she could see) and insanely acrobatic (that, she could _definitely_ see) jerk.

But she wouldn’t have started dating him if he was _actually_ a jerk. She wasn’t her mom, thanks. And even though he _definitely_ wasn’t the same Robin she’d met all those years ago, he was so obviously a good guy. Awkward sometimes, sure, but even that was stupidly adorable.

So yeah. She was dating Robin. That was a thing.

And she couldn’t even brag about it. Honestly, sometimes her life was so unfair.

–

Robin told her that he had a surprise. He blindfolded her, and when the blindfold came off, they were at the top of Wayne Tower.

The tallest building in Gotham, he told her. He was right. _Easily_ right.

Sure, when the blindfold initially came off, she yelped in surprise, because _tall_.

But then something swooped in her stomach and—

Some day she’d be able to fly higher than this, any time she damn well pleased.

–

Occasionally, though, Robin was a jerk. Even if Batman had put him up to the “no faces, no real names, ever, not even with your adorable, darling girlfriend” thing.

Okay, so she knew that Batman’s actual description of her had definitely been less complimentary, but that was besides the point. She _was_ adorable, it wasn’t her fault Batman didn’t respect the adorb.

It was what it was. She’d known what she was getting into, pursuing Robin.

That didn’t mean it was never hard.

The dragon thing helped, some nights. Even knowing it wouldn’t technically matter for another two years…

Well, it did still matter.

Robin had yanked off her mask and found out her identity the first time she’d met him. But she’d been dating him for months, and she didn’t even know his _name_. Batman undoubtedly had a whole, fifty-page file on her and a longer one on her dad, color-coded and cross-referenced, and she had never seen her boyfriend’s actual face.

So...it felt good. Just…to know that she had a secret. One she’d _kept_. One they hadn’t even figured out _existed_.

...Probably.

–

But nah, if Batman knew she’s soon be able to turn into a giant fucking dragon, he would’ve either stopped trying to make her go home all the goddamn time, or kicked her out entirely, because No Metas in Gotham.

...That was going to be a problem, wasn’t it.

But it would be a problem for Future Steph. Who would maybe even have her shit together.

Hey, a girl could dream.


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I'm updating this again?? Hopefully a trend that will continue. I really do want to finish this, life has just been a Lot this year, and I moved away from the Batfam a bit.
> 
> Warnings for teen pregnancy and Steph not having all the best thoughts about herself because of it. Also non-explicit discussion of her father's abuse.

Then Stephanie Brown got _pregnant_.

“Fuck,” she muttered to herself, still sitting on the toilet, half bent over the pregnancy test in her hand. The little pink lines were _mocking_ her.

How could she have been so _stupid_? They hadn’t had a condom, _why_ had she decided it was okay to go ahead without a condom?

Well. She had a lot of answers to that. None of them flattered her. Like, at all.

“ _Fuck_.”

She’d have to—

Fuck, she didn’t even know what she’d have to do. What did having a baby even entail?

–

It took until Steph had her first nightmare about her dad getting his hands on her kid.

Which, unfortunately, took like three days.

She was going to go with adoption. _Closed_ adoption. To her, at least, if felt like the only option.

Well, mostly the only option. Abortions were important, she knew that, but she didn't _want_ one. However much it might have made things easier. 

And keeping the baby, raising it—

But she couldn’t. The dream was just another reminder of just one of the many reasons why. If her dad found out—and he _would—_ she couldn’t risk letting him near the baby, ever.

Sure, he probably didn’t _actually_ have the patience to take a kid and train them into a criminal—he hadn’t tried with her, anyway—but she couldn’t risk dismissing the possibility entirely.

And besides that, there was…

That was when it hit her. Because when her dad hit her, a good half the time, he threw in some complaint about the fact that she was a dragon.

“Fuck,” she hissed. Quietly, so she didn’t wake her mom. Roughly, because her voice was still uneven from the dream, her arms still wanted to shake.

Steph was sitting up in bed already, courtesy of one abrupt and much-too-late awakening. She pulled the blankets up around her shoulders and made herself lean back. It wasn’t exactly actual relaxation, but maybe it helped.

What didn’t help? Realizing that she’d been so caught up in her worries about having a baby, she’d totally forgotten that that baby wouldn’t be completely human.

 _She’d_ come out of the tube normal, at least. So the baby probably would to. Aunt Dorothy had assured her that all half-dragons came into their power at eighteen—and not before.

But she couldn’t leave her kid in the middle of some unknowing, unsuspecting human family, totally clueless about what would happen to them. Especially not with the kind of...transformational precursors that her aunt had described.

The kid would probably go straight to the doctor—unless they ended up too poor to afford insurance, part of Steph’s mind whispered, which she steadfastly ignored, because she was not going to think about those things, she couldn’t—and then the doctor would run a bunch of exams, and then the medical establishment would discover that dragons existed, and then Steph would be the girl who got teen pregnant and fucked them all over.

Because she hadn’t been careful in fucking her boyfriend.

Hah. She cracked herself up.

It was—Steph glanced at her alarm clock. It said three a.m. in glowing red letters that really felt judgmental.

She couldn’t call Aunt Dorothy at three in the morning. Also, she wouldn’t, because it was an absolutely horrendously bad idea. And also rude.

No. No, she just had to get back to sleep.

Somehow. Eventually.

Steph tossed and turned and grimaced for twenty minutes before cursing and—quietly—stomping her way over to the kitchen. She’d just have to make herself some hot cocoa and be very, very happy that she was being home schooled for the rest of her pregnancy. If she had to get up in what was now, apparently, three hours? She might well expire on the spot and have to be marched off to school as a member of the pregnant undead.

–

“Wait, wait, wait—” the voice cut in, warm and raspy. “Honey, stop. Just take a breath and tell me again, slower.”

Steph’s throat tightened further. There were very few things she wanted to do less than have this conversation.

“I’m pregnant,” she said anyway, managing to keep herself from rambling on again.

Courage was in spite of fear. Or whatever.

“Oh, _honey_ ,” her Aunt Dorothy said, and as hard as she listened, Steph couldn’t hear any judgment in her tone. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Steph forced out through the press of her throat. “I’m okay. Just—” She wouldn’t cry. She _wouldn’t_. “Just fucking _embarrassed_.”

“I know, honey, I know. But what’s important is that you’re okay. And that you went ahead and called me. It’s okay, everything will be okay.” God, how was her dad related to this saint of a woman?

The thought helped puncture the weight suffocating Steph whole. It had been one terrifying thing to know, another to have the nightmares another to say it out loud.

The sleep deprivation from the nightmares hadn’t helped. But at least she’d looked awful enough that her mom had let her skip school without a question.

“Y—yeah,” she managed. “…Tell me again?”

“It’ll be okay, sweetie. _Everything_ will be okay.”

“Yeah.” It was watery. But maybe that was also okay.

“Aunt Dorothy. It’s. It’s gonna be a—” She didn’t want to say over the phone. “You know what. Isn’t it?”

Aunt Dorothy let out a long, slow breath. “Yes, honey. Yes, it is.”

“Okay.” She’d _hoped_. Naively. “That’s not good, is it?”

“Why wouldn’t it be good?” Aunt Dorothy asked, voice somehow still so gentle it couldn’t be real. It made Steph want to break something. Almost. “Even if the baby wouldn’t be your child, we’d never look down at one of our kind.”

Something in Steph’s stomach twisted. “My dad—”

“Your dad is a fucking bastard,” Aunt Dorothy said, voice _sharp_. “And the rest of us know far, far better.”

But that wasn’t what Steph had been asking.

“What if he— what if he _wants_ —?”

Aunt Dorothy kept silent for a long moment, but Steph couldn’t bring herself to continue. Dreams of a baby dragon on a leash, of wings shot through with bullets, flashed through her mind.

“Your father is far too self-centered for that to be a worry,” her aunt said gently. “Thankfully. And even if he wasn’t— I haven’t even talked on the phone to him since he was sealed. Not that I’d stay in contact with the rat bastard, except for you and your mother, but I haven’t seen my own brother is twenty years. He’s too bitter. Which— Well. They took his wings. Trust me, when I say he won’t interact with our kind any more than necessary. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up on the no-contact list when you hit eighteen.”

That.

That would take processing.

But…

God, she _wanted_ to end up on that no-contact list. Even as she hated that it would still be his goddamned choice.

“I—” She could say it. She _could_. “I wanted to put the baby up for adoption. Closed adoption. But, with us, I can't. I know that. And I don't. I don't want to get rid of it, but I don't know what else to do. If it couldn't have a good life.”

“If you wanted to do that, it would be okay. But you don't have to,” Aunt Dorothy said. “We can make things work, no matter what. Yes, a closed adoption would be complicated. But just because you can’t do it through the courts doesn’t mean you can’t do something near enough. If it’s what you want, I know some people. We can take care of this. Make sure your baby ends up with good people, who’ll know how to raise them.”

That seemed too easy.

“You _can_?”

“Honey,” her aunt’s voice was amused, but not laughing at Steph. Thank god. “I promise you, you are not the first of us to end up in this situation. I’m not saying there won’t be bumps in the road, but we know how to handle this. And rat bastards aside, we _take care_ of our young.”

Steph swallowed.

“…Tell me again?”

Aunt Dorothy’s voice was solid. Steph liked to think its warm rasp came from her fire.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

\--

Stephanie gave birth well into the night.

At the time, she’d been too full of painkillers and pain to think about it. Later, she wondered if a late-night birth was a metaphor. Or prophetic.

At the time, giving birth was the most painful thing she’d ever endured.

Refusing to see her own child—to _hold them_ —had nothing on that. And it was the right choice.

Her child would be loved. Her aunt had promised. Said she knew the people taking her child in, knew they were good people, would be _good parents_.

That was what mattered.

That, and getting out of the damn hospital.

\--

Then:

Stephanie Brown was Robin, and it was _everything_.

Stephanie Brown was fired, and she refused to give up.

Stephanie Brown was dead, and for days, she knew nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that next chapter she finally gets to turn into a dragon. I promise.


End file.
